End of the Road
by Fanless
Summary: Dustfinger's tired of playing cat and mouse. Basta's not so sure he wants the game to end. An older oneshot with slash overtones that I unearthed and finished recently.


I decided I might as well contribute to a worthy cause; in this case, the time-honored "love/hate" relationship. Apologies in advance to VickyVicarious, in case she feels that I'm ripping her off, but she's too good _not_ to rip off. Am I right, everyone?

Please review, even if/especially if you hated it. If you did, tell me what's wrong with it. If you loved it... well, you're not alone. I do, too.

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This wasn't what he'd planned at all.

He was supposed to kill him. He was supposed to slash Dustfinger's fishy pencil throat and watch him fall, just leave him on the ground for the police or whoever happened by.

But as Basta stood there, the rain pooling in his hair and drizzling off the edges of Dustfinger's coat, rattling incessantly off both of them, something about the way the fire-eater hunched in the chilly downpour made it impossible to move.

"Well?" Dustfinger murmured, after infinity. "You've won, Basta. Go ahead. I've lost everything. My weapons, my friends, my strength... I can't even light a match in this weather. Do what you want with me. Just don't gloat as you carve me up. I can't stand a sore winner."

_Do what you want with me._

The sentence seared across Basta's brain like a trail from one of Dustfinger's twirling torches. He nearly dropped his knife, fingers numb from hateful March cold.

"Who said I wanted to carve you up, fire-eater?" he managed, incandescent at his own reaction. Why should his stomach have twisted at those words? Damn! He thought he'd managed to weed _that_ out of himself for good—

"Isn't that what you've always wanted?" Dustfinger slumped, knees sinking into a puddle. "I know you, Basta. I know you better than I ever wanted to. I know you want to torture me till I can't take any more. Then you'll put me out of my misery."

Basta said nothing. He was struggling with his thoughts. This was supposed to have been the exorcism for all those dreams, all those wayward flashes of fancy that left him exhilarated and disgusted, all those moments when...

"So you're not going to fight, matchstick man? You're tired of living all of a sudden?" The anger in his voice shocked him; not because it was there but because of the reason; because suddenly he _wanted_ Dustfinger to stand up. He _wanted_ Dustfinger to swing at him, to beg, to struggle, anything. Without the struggle, he realized, there was no satisfaction.

In fact, there was no satisfaction here whatsoever. Here he was, the bane of his existence at his feet, knife in hand... and he wasn't even enjoying it.

Something was terribly wrong.

"Yes." Dustfinger bowed his head. "Yes, Basta, all right? I'm sick of living. I'm sick of the noise, I'm sick of the filth, I'm sick of the daily grind just to keep us from starving." _Us_. He and the boy. Basta wanted to spit at the thought of that baby Farid, following Dustfinger like a puppy. _What a role model to pick!_ he thought hastily, to quell any other reasons for anger at their closeness that might arise. "And I'm sick of the fear. Of constantly looking behind me. Of you."

Basta knelt before Dustfinger, trying to see the fire-eater's face. It was hidden behind curtains of filthy, stringy hair— Basta'd been pursuing him for weeks and in that time neither of them had been keeping up appearances. Basta knew his own white shirt was brown with dust, sweat and the occasional bloodstain. He peered closely, far more closely than he was comfortable with, but Dustfinger didn't look up.

It angered Basta. He grabbed Dustfinger's chin, forcing the man to look up at him. "A coward to the very end, then?" he spat, throat muddying. "Come on, Dustyfingers, can't you even summon a little fight? Come on, spit in my eye. Give me a reason. Or do you want me to be bored?"

Dustfinger just looked away, silent.

And that anger raised a roar in Basta's mind, a howl inside him that refused to be silenced.

Dustfinger's reaction was satisfying, wide eyes and a second of immobility, then the tensing of muscle and struggle, shoving at Basta's chest just a second too late, right after Basta's lips left his and Basta's fingers uncurled from the back of his neck.

Basta jumped up, sneer as sharp as his knife. "That's the spirit!"

"You— you—" Dustfinger stumbled to his feet, slipping in the rainy mud.

"That put a little fire in your breath, fire-eater?" Basta danced, drunken with his own sudden irresponsibility, mad gloating glee swallowing the anger. For now. "A real kiss-off, that was! Makes you want to take a swing at me, doesn't it? Or maybe—"

He didn't wait for Dustfinger's curses, just turned and ran. Ran from the dark red burning inside, ran for the high of being the one chased for once, ran like a boy again, leaving all the uncertainty and confliction behind.

He still had that power over the fire-eater. What it meant, why it meant so much to him, didn't matter at the moment. All that mattered was that, once again, he'd won.

And the game wasn't over yet. The checkered flag hadn't yet dropped.

They still had miles to go before the end of the road.

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_fin_

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It ended much differently than I'd planned. But maybe that's not such a bad thing.

What did _you_ think?


End file.
